[MDOsprey] HAVRE DE GRACE SHOREBIRDS

rick (rblom@blazie.com)
Mon, 2 Aug 1999 11:59:32 -0500


        On Sunday evening I checked the flats at Havre de Grace. Low tide
was not full until 8:30, so the flat was still increasing in size as the
light failed. Birds were still coming in when I left. Highlights include:

Great Blue Heron                45
Bald Eagle                      9 (1 ad; 8 imm)
Killdeer                        25
Semipalmated Plover             6
Lesser Yellowlegs               1
Short-billed Dowitcher          1
Least Sandpiper                 18
Semi/Western Sandpiper          3
Pectoral Sandpiper              1
RUDDY TURNSTONE                 1 (first of fall)
Ring-billed Gull                600
Great Black-backed Gull         125
Laughing Gull                   22
Caspian Tern                    60
Forster's Tern                  400 (by far the largest count of fall)

Shorebirds and terns were in low numbers when I arrived at 7:00 p.m.

        On Tursday evening (July 29), Dave Webb and I checked the flats and
had, among the same number of gulls, 1 first-summer LESSER BLACK-BACKED
GULL, the first since May, and a full adult breeding-plumaged BONAPARTE'S
GULL, the first I have even seen in Maryland in July and presumably a
record arrival date for the county. We also had 3 SHORT-BILLED DOWITCHERS,
4 SEMIPALMATED PLOVERS, 125 LEAST SANDPIPERS, 6 SEMI/WESTERN SANDPIPERS, 45
KILLDEER, and a flyby flock of shorebirds that had what was almost
certainly a WILSDON'S PHALAROPE in it, but it did not stop and we did not
confirm the ID.

        On both Thursday and on Sunday (see above) I checked the ponds at
Lakeside Blvd. On both days there were numerous Killdeer, several Solitary
Sandpipers, 3 Least Sandpipers, 3 Great Egrets, and the male Ring-necked
Duck. On Sunday there was also a subadult Double-crested Cormorant in the
large pond.

Rick

"Whenever nature creates something that cannot possibly be confused with
something else, it immediately creates something very like it; if nature
abhors a vacuum, it simply loathes and detests an unmistakable species."
-- Miles Kington


Rick Blom
rblom@blazie.com
4318 Cowan Place
Belcamp, Maryland 21017
(410)575-6086